Revealed: Scottish nobles played 'proper' football as far back as the 1400s

SCOTS were playing "proper football" way back in the 15th and 16th centuries, new research has revealed.

SCOTS were playing "proper football" way back in the 15th and 16th centuries, new research has revealed.

The English claim they invented the game in 1848, when boffins at Cambridge University drew up the first set of rules.

But now experts at the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden have found evidence of Scots nobles playing "civilised" matches, with rules, three centuries earlier.

Historic documents in the National Library of Scotland tell of games in castle courtyards where players were only allowed to use their feet, and applauded for "skilful" touches.

And it has emerged that a row over a bad tackle in one such match almost led to a duel to the death between two noblemen.

The diary of England's ambassador to the Scottish court in the early 1580s tells how Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, fell out with the Master of Marischal, George Keith, over a "stroke given at football upon Bothwell's leg".

The diary adds that Keith had "received a sore fall by Bothwell" during the game.

The ambassador said a deadly duel was only avoided when King James VI was tipped off about the row and put a stop to it.

Evidence also suggests that James's royal ancestors were keen football fans.

A set of accounts from the reign of King James IV shows he paid two shillings for a bag of "fut ballis" in April 1497.

And a leather football found stuck in the roof of Mary, Queen of Scots's bedchamber at Stirling Castle is believed to date to 1540, making it the oldest in the world.

The noble games were very different to the "mob football" played by ordinary Scots in Stewart times, when huge "teams" battered each other for possession on "pitches" more than two miles long.

And football museum curator Richard McBrearty says the new evidence sheds important light on the birth of our national game.

He said: "The accounts of small football matches in the grounds of castles suggest the game, in its current form, is much older than officially documented.

"It appears football was more of an evolution than a 19th century revolution.

"There are enough examples to make a case for the game being invented much earlier."